Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: Today we're going to be talking about the big R word, recruiting, and you're going to hear exclusive live footage in the field of me recruiting.
Speaker: So let's jump into it.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I'm your host.
Speaker: We are here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals.
Speaker: And today we're also going to help you recruit more people on your team.
Speaker: Excited to dive into today's podcast.
Speaker: If you are new, welcome to the show.
Speaker: We are dropping episodes every Tuesday and Friday, coming at you free and available on Spotify, iTunes, Apple, wherever you can find your podcasts.
Speaker: And appreciate everyone that has shared the show, that has left reviews.
Speaker: It is greatly appreciated.
Speaker: And before we get into the content today, remember we are on our last days to get your discount to SolarCon.com.
Speaker: go there's a link in the show notes below go click it you're going to use the code solarpreneur you're going to get exclusive uh access to some bonuses from over here at solarpreneur to our uh community you're going to get access to that along with a great discount
Speaker: So go get in on that and we look forward to seeing everybody here at SolarCon coming up in April.
Speaker: So today's episode, we're talking about something that I have not talked about in a while and I'll be honest, I have not really been actively recruiting much.
Speaker: My recruits pretty much just all came from people reaching out to me.
Speaker: And it's not something that has been much of a focus, unfortunately.
Speaker: And that's on me because really we should all be trying to grow our teams.
Speaker: We should be trying to spread our influence and recruiting is a massive part of that.
Speaker: So recently I have been doing more interviewing, been trying to get people on our team.
Speaker: So if you want a great team to be a part of in San Diego, here's my plug.
Speaker: Hit me up.
Speaker: We'll get you an interview.
Speaker: I can't promise you a job, but I can promise you an interview.
Speaker: So come check it out.
Speaker: And specifically, if you are in California, we've got a great plan for Net Meter 3.0 coming out.
Speaker: So if you are not feeling confident in your ability to sell with batteries or your ability to transition to NetMuting 3.0 in California, hit me up.
Speaker: We're going to be still moving forward like a freight train selling everyone we talk to.
Speaker: That's how we do it.
Speaker: So hit me up.
Speaker: Let's talk.
Speaker: Okay, but purpose of this show is not to recruit you to my team.
Speaker: That's not why we're doing this podcast.
Speaker: It is to bring free value and to help you in your solar journey.
Speaker: So let's talk about the big R word, recruiting.
Speaker: So like I said, I have been doing interviews recently and the big mistake I made just recently, if you ever interview people, don't do this.
Speaker: Learn from my mistake.
Speaker: I got an interview sent to me.
Speaker: We did the little phone interview.
Speaker: We're talking.
Speaker: It was on camera.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Make sure you get these people on camera.
Speaker: You want to see how they are.
Speaker: If you're not doing it in person, make sure you are doing like a zoom or I think we use Google meet.
Speaker: You want to see how these people interact.
Speaker: Do they have eye contact?
Speaker: Hey, and the mistake I made this, I had a candidates.
Speaker: I thought she was going to be decent.
Speaker: She seems solid.
Speaker: We get to the end of it.
Speaker: And I say, you know what?
Speaker: You seem like you could be good at this.
Speaker: So I'm going to give you a shot.
Speaker: We're going to give you a position on our team.
Speaker: Be here this time.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: Well, the time where she was supposed to come start onboarding with us a week later, for me, was a couple of days.
Speaker: Yeah, that's another key.
Speaker: Don't don't have these people start like a year out.
Speaker: Try to get them starting as soon as possible.
Speaker: So maybe it was like, you know, the following week on the Monday, she reached out, said she couldn't make it.
Speaker: And then we're like, OK, come this next time.
Speaker: And we reached out, confirmed with her.
Speaker: She didn't respond.
Speaker: We haven't heard from her since.
Speaker: So the mistake I made is I offered her the job right on the spot.
Speaker: She didn't really have to work on it or work for it.
Speaker: And she was already being an offered up position.
Speaker: So keep in mind, if you are interviewing, if you are recruiting, our job is not to beg people to be on our team.
Speaker: just like we do takeaways and sales we need to make people work for this position they are privileged to have the opportunity to potentially be a part of our teams so make sure you are treating it as such and making these people work do not offer them the job on the spot make it seem like they got to work for it make it seem like you're going to get back to them just like any other job you think of if you try to work for google for facebook for anything else do you think
Speaker: They're going to offer someone a job on the spot.
Speaker: No way.
Speaker: They're going to make them work for it.
Speaker: They're going to build some intrigue.
Speaker: They're going to have to, the candidate is going to have to sell themselves as much as they can.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So we need to do the same thing as recruiters in our companies.
Speaker: Someone that I follow for recruiting advice are Brandon and Alex Hall.
Speaker: They have their shut the fluff up business, which helps people recruit teams and, you know, build better systems around that.
Speaker: And something Brandon says that I didn't really think about is sales and recruiting are quite a bit different in a lot of ways.
Speaker: In sales, we're trying to build rapport.
Speaker: We're trying to prove we're credible.
Speaker: We're trying to build urgency.
Speaker: We're trying to win approval.
Speaker: We're pursuing.
Speaker: But in recruiting, in a lot of ways, it's the opposite.
Speaker: You got to be indifferent.
Speaker: And some of these, I think, apply to sales too, especially solar.
Speaker: People want what they can't have.
Speaker: So we got to be indifferent at times.
Speaker: We got to do takeaways.
Speaker: We know that in our solar sales too.
Speaker: But even more so, I think in recruiting, you got to be indifferent.
Speaker: Hey, are you trying to sell people on the job in your recruiting interviews?
Speaker: No, you got to be indifferent.
Speaker: You got to be skeptical.
Speaker: You got to be skeptical that this person even should be deserve a position on your team or should be considered for your team.
Speaker: Instead of urgent, you got to be patient, patient with people.
Speaker: And instead of winning approval, you need to award approval.
Speaker: Instead of pursuing, you need to attract.
Speaker: So these are key differences in your recruiting versus yourselves.
Speaker: But overall, just don't make the mistake that I made.
Speaker: Make sure you are making these people work for their jobs.
Speaker: make them go through multiple interviews.
Speaker: What I really like that we're doing over here in our system is we have our office girls, shout out to Shayla and Jackie, they're interviewing these candidates.
Speaker: And as I get organic recruits, I send them over to them.
Speaker: They do a first round interview.
Speaker: And then after they vet them, after they see that they have transportation, they have phones, they're not like just getting out of prison or whatever.
Speaker: Okay, they're not a
Speaker: in their jail cell right now then they send them to me for the second round interview and then after i do the second round interview i don't offer the job on the spot learn that the hard way i say okay we'll get back to you and then i text over shaley and jackie and say hey i think they should be good let's give them a shot and then they get a hold of them in the next couple days and officially offer them the position and start the onboarding
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so I'm actively building the team.
Speaker: This is what's working for us.
Speaker: Hey, and just being blunt, I actually had one of our managers here in San Diego.
Speaker: It wasn't running a team.
Speaker: She just took a lot of her team.
Speaker: She's running off to Texas.
Speaker: Can't believe she wants to go to Texas over California.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: We all know California is the best market.
Speaker: No offense, you Texans.
Speaker: But she's running off to Texas and I'm left here with a very small team because some of the people are going with her.
Speaker: And so that's why I'm thinking recruiting more than anything right now.
Speaker: I need to get people on the team.
Speaker: And so the footage that I'm going to share with you here is a live recruiting attempt I made last weekend.
Speaker: Took my wife on a little date night to Cheesecake Factory, one of her favorite places.
Speaker: And I thought, OK, it's been a while since I tried to like recruit my waiter.
Speaker: Let's see what we can do here.
Speaker: So I made it a goal.
Speaker: I'm like, I'm not leaving Cheesecake Factory until I have a conversation to try and recruit somebody.
Speaker: So I recorded this attempt and shout out to Ciro.
Speaker: I've talked about Ciro before, but you can record not only your sales conversation, you can record your recruiting conversations.
Speaker: Okay, and this was my first time trying to have trying to recruit someone like at a restaurant in a long time.
Speaker: So you're probably gonna hear me butcher some things.
Speaker: You're gonna hear me stumble on some words.
Speaker: You're gonna hear that it doesn't sound super confident, but hey, I made an attempt.
Speaker: So let's break it down.
Speaker: Let's hear how it went.
Speaker: And then hopefully you can learn a thing or two from my mistakes, or maybe from a couple things I did good.
Speaker: So here it is.
Speaker: We actually have a lot of guys that work jobs like this.
Speaker: They're doing that before they came and did sales.
Speaker: It's cool.
Speaker: A lot of them are making insane money now.
Speaker: Funny, we actually had a couple of openings.
Speaker: I know you just kind of started doing this, but you ever opened up other job opportunities?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I'm actually...
Speaker: Okay, so you hear my attempt.
Speaker: Again, I'm stumbling over my words a little bit.
Speaker: And just looking back at this, I think I'm selling a little too hard.
Speaker: I'm saying, hey, we have guys making insane money.
Speaker: But I think the key, I'm happy with it.
Speaker: I think you want to give them a compliment.
Speaker: So before this, before I started, I started out with, hey, man, you're good at what you do.
Speaker: How long you been doing this?
Speaker: Kind of struck up a conversation.
Speaker: We started talking.
Speaker: And so first three, four minutes before this, we're actually just shooting the breeze, talking about stuff.
Speaker: And then this was my transition.
Speaker: I said, hey, I'm doing some solar cells out here.
Speaker: We've got guys that are making insane money doing this, that we're doing what you're doing before.
Speaker: So I think that's a good way to go about it.
Speaker: Maybe you don't want to sound desperate like...
Speaker: you're pitching them.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because people hate it.
Speaker: How many times have we been approached in the mall by, by those pesky network marketers, those MLM type things.
Speaker: You don't want to sound like that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Um, so make it different.
Speaker: You don't want them to think first thing, Oh, I'm being pitched something.
Speaker: I'm being begged to, to come sell this weird thing that I have no idea about.
Speaker: Okay, and so you'll hear what happens next.
Speaker: He starts going through his, that he was interviewing for another sale job, which is cool.
Speaker: And yeah, you'll hear it.
Speaker: In the interview process right now with one for sales, it's this company called Newzella.
Speaker: They do online, it's for like school districts, like three through 12.
Speaker: So basically my job would be to make phone calls to schools and stuff like that.
Speaker: This job is pretty much just paying rent at this point, which is all I really need.
Speaker: yeah so i'm this is the only thing that i'm doing right now but i work like four or five days a week but if i can get that job i would cut down here for whatever whatever really just fits but yeah i mean definitely open especially if it doesn't work out with this one the thing with this one is it's a salary position and i know a lot of the solar a lot of the solar jobs are like and it's part of the reason why i didn't start doing it immediately when i got here yeah is they kind of were like yeah you'll
Speaker: You know, you'll start working, but you don't get paid salary, so you'll start earning money in a few months.
Speaker: And I'm just like, I can't wait for that.
Speaker: I need immediate money.
Speaker: And if I can get the salary job, then obviously that's something that's, you know, I had my third interview, and it was like a mock call.
Speaker: And I haven't heard back from them, but they sent me an email asking me for another interview.
Speaker: So I have a fourth one coming up.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: That's a lot.
Speaker: Yeah, and I'm like, hey, yeah, like I work 48 in the week too, so like we have to kind of go around now, but it shouldn't be too bad.
Speaker: But I mean, if you want to, if you have like a contact information, like I would like to.
Speaker: Are you on like Instagram or anything?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or I'll add you on there.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, they got a few openings.
Speaker: I was going to like promise you a job, but if I could get you like interviewed, do you think you'd like do something like that?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: What was your name?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I'm cutting off from his name.
Speaker: Don't be stealing my recruit, people.
Speaker: You animals.
Speaker: But no, so this guy, he was cool.
Speaker: He was a good waiter and he seemed like a guy that could have talent.
Speaker: So that's the thing.
Speaker: You got to be out there, always be recruiting, just like you're always selling.
Speaker: Hey, and if you recruit where you are, you're never going to have to go anywhere to recruit.
Speaker: Hey, just make it a point to look for people.
Speaker: If you have good service at a restaurant, that could be a recruit.
Speaker: You know, the last episode we talked with a guy who's super good at this, John Soriano.
Speaker: And John, he told me that he has grown his entire region.
Speaker: All off of organic recruits.
Speaker: He's recruited managers from within his team.
Speaker: He's not pulling people from other companies.
Speaker: So I think that's a really great way to grow.
Speaker: The only way you can do that, though, is if you're always recruiting, if you're getting people at restaurants like this, if you're looking for talent.
Speaker: Todd Peterson, the guy who started Divint, like he was one of the best recruiters ever.
Speaker: I've heard stories from some of these alarm guys that Todd was just always looking for the greatest talent.
Speaker: I've heard him speak to and that's what he does.
Speaker: He looks for the greatest talent and he goes after them as hard as he can.
Speaker: So let that be a lesson to you.
Speaker: Always be recruiting.
Speaker: Hope you took something away from the end of that.
Speaker: So you heard my little takeaway at the end, like, hey, couldn't promise you a job, but if I could get you an interview, would you at least come?
Speaker: Would you check it out?
Speaker: Okay, so you're doing your little takeaway.
Speaker: Same thing as in sales.
Speaker: You're taking it away.
Speaker: You're not begging them to be part of the team, but you're saying, hey, I think you could be good at this.
Speaker: We do have a few openings that just came up.
Speaker: If I could get you an interview, you would at least come.
Speaker: Would you at least come?
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: And the other key thing that I've learned over time is instead of getting their phone number, their contact info, just go grab their Instagram, grab their social media.
Speaker: Because what is it going to do?
Speaker: Your social media is your business card.
Speaker: They're going to go on you.
Speaker: You're going to follow them.
Speaker: They're going to follow you back.
Speaker: They're going to see what's this guy about?
Speaker: What's this girl about?
Speaker: Oh, cool.
Speaker: She's knocking on doors.
Speaker: She's making calls.
Speaker: She's putting these solar panels up on the roof.
Speaker: They got a great team.
Speaker: So make sure your social media also reflects whatever it is you're trying to bring people into.
Speaker: If they go on your social media, it's just pure cat videos, which is pure monkeys jumping around, funny stuff that might make them chuckle.
Speaker: But are they going to join your team?
Speaker: Probably not if you have pure cat videos.
Speaker: So make sure you get your social media on par with what you want to be reflected with how you want people to perceive you.
Speaker: And that's what's going to attract them on your team.
Speaker: Give them the Instagram.
Speaker: And what happened with this?
Speaker: Just a spoiler.
Speaker: This guy, he reached out to me the next week.
Speaker: I don't even have to reach out to him.
Speaker: He reached out to me.
Speaker: He said, hey, Taylor, can I still get some info on being part of your team?
Speaker: What do I need to do?
Speaker: That's how you know that this guy actually wants it.
Speaker: That's how you know that I was not desperate.
Speaker: Hey, I got a lot of room to improve.
Speaker: I stumbled on my words.
Speaker: I didn't sound super confident, but hey, you got to start somewhere.
Speaker: So try recording yourself, not only in yourselves, but also in your recruiting opportunities.
Speaker: Would love to hear some.
Speaker: Shoot me it if you want to be featured potentially on the show.
Speaker: It's another thing I'd love to start doing more of is reviewing recruiting approaches.
Speaker: Okay, I'm not a master at it, but hopefully we can all learn together.
Speaker: So shoot this to someone who needs some help recruiting.
Speaker: Or if you recently started Solar, remember, it's never too early or too late to start recruiting.
Speaker: You always want to be building your influence.
Speaker: And what I found is the more people I can help, the better I learn it myself.
Speaker: So as you recruit people on your team, as you help others, it's only going to help you and your personal selves.
Speaker: Hope that helps.
Speaker: We'll see you guys on the next one.
Speaker: Keep crushing it out there.
Speaker: Grow your teams and go sell some solar panels.
Speaker: Peace out.
Speaker: Hey, solopreneurs, are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels every month and not seeing your sales increase?
Speaker: Well, so was I, and the truth is I was never able to improve it until I figured out what was going wrong.
Speaker: So that's why I'm excited to announce for a limited time, we are doing a free sales diagnostic.
Speaker: We'll break down your sales process, figure out the holes in your business and see how we can help you improve.
Speaker: So at now we have six bucks for this month.
Speaker: So book a call now.
Speaker: Don't miss out.
Speaker: What you're going to do is send an email to taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: That's taylor at solarpreneurs with an S dot com.
Speaker: I'll send you out a calendar link and we will figure out the time that works best.
Speaker: So shoot that email and let's increase your sales.
